Isn't The Point Of The Rolling Stone Cover That The Bomber Appeared To Be A Normal Kid?

[matthewf]

[skypilot]

1. I didn't watch the video because...

...I don't have audio at the moment, but I can't help but think that the problem people are having with this cover derives from the fact that he kinda looks like a rock star in this photo. A rock star on the cover of a rock star magazine. I wonder how things would have played out if Rolling Stone had used this photo instead.

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcToedtbgwtN4vNl27nYnK9P2zKp8ETpfU0gKLyy45yDWrq6o-Zn

[maddiemom]

2. Oh wait! What?

Front pages of major national newspapers at the time? YES! All over TV news YES! As if no one knew what he looked like? Inside portraits in major magazines? Fine. The covers of national magazines, including the coveted "Cover of the Rolling Stone," originally hoped for by struggling rock groups, and later controversial political figures...a very big NO! How many crazies are out there, willing to die for headlines, who will be inspired by this?

[JohnnyRingo]

3. The point of the cover is to sell magazines.

I've been a subscriber since the '80s, and I was more offended by the appearance of Brittney Spears and talentless boy bands who have graced the cover in recent years. The word "offended" is a relative term here of course, and rates between "not at all" and "mildly'.

People who comment that the cover should be the focus of a music icon haven't been keeping up. Rolling Stone Magazine has evolved over the decades and has become a cultural touchstone that reports nearly as much on current events and political happenings as any news magazine out there. "All the news that fits" is the wryly parodied slogan that greets readers inside the cover of every issue.

I refer the indignant to Time Magazine's often controversial "Person of the year".

[SunSeeker]

4. No, the purported point of the piece was to explain why the kid became a bomber.

We already knew what he looked like, and we already knew what he did. So the purported "journalism" here was to uncover how he became a terrorist. The article did not shed any new light on that.

So what was the point of the article, other than a justification for the dreamy shot of a terrorist on the cover?

[MADem]

5. No--the point was to sell magazines. Even when RS did the McChrystal story by Michael Hastings,

a Big Story, that, unlike this one, broke new ground, the cover shot was not of the general, it was an artist, professionally shot--Lady Gaga, in that case.

Willy Nelson (see upper left corner) should have had that cover.

The counterculture Kewl Kids got gamed by the same editor who sells the gossip rag, US WEEKLY to supermarket shoppers with empty lives. He's laughing all the way to the bank. He got himself a winner in a slow sales month, and all he had to do is make a few people in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts feel a bit brutalized. "Ha ha..."

Here's the unvarnished truth of the matter:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/45755883/#52504740

[nandru]

6. Well said Mathew.

This controversy has all the earmarks of a manufactured RW attack imo. Fox news was spewing this "outrage" at 5:00 AM on Wednesday, by 7:00 AM the script was being repeated verbatim on all three local networks and by mid morning it was gushing down the intertubes. Rolling Stone is one of our last bastions of excellent investigative journalism. This is one of those pieces. Sitting here in "our fair city" of Cambridge the cover seems absolutely fitting and appropriate and seamless with the lead article between the covers. As Mathew said, the discomfort with the image may be that Jahar's appearance is so like that of a typical teenager, an "every man". And that is exactly the point.

[BrainMann1]

7. Look at Lawrence O'Donnell (The Last Word)statements from 07/17/2013

Nuff said

[Divine Discontent]

8. not a biggie for most of us, but ya gotta think how it'd feel as a victim/family/friend w/him on RS!

using an ArmaniExchange wearing bomber's coiffed "selfie" on the cover of RS insults not only the victims and their family and friends, but encourages boys to know that doing what he did, gets you on RS, and throngs of teen girls oohing and ahhing over him since the day it happened. The negatives far outweigh any positives of having him on the cover. You know he just loves it...

I agree with others, they should have used the pic of him in the act or after he was captured.

I just wonder where Adam Lanza's RS cover is at? He's not attractive enough for a cover apparently despite him killing 9 times as many people, mostly children... so what are they saying with their cover, "can you believe a good looking person could harm people?"

[nandru]

9. Re Lawrence O'Donnell

I often like Lawrence O'Donnell's opeds but what Lawrence O'Donnell has to say about the issue is simply his opinion, mine is another, and yours is yet another. They're all just personal opinions.

My community was very directly affected by the tragedy, many of us very personally, myself included, and I have yet to speak with anyone who finds the cover of a Rolling Stone issue traumatizing. I doubt the primary concern of those injured would be the cover of a magazine on the newstands any more than the victims of Whitey Bolger are concerned with his image being reproduced everywhere in the local the media. This photograph has been printed multiple times in both the local and national press since the tragedy so you have to ask yourself why the controversy this time? IMO this has its roots in a right wing attack on Rolling Stone. And as to the concern that Jahar's photograph will lead other youth down the path to terrorism, are you serious? What's next, book burning? As a side note the statement released by CVS on their sensitivity to community, their deep roots in our community, really? I won't even attempt to describe their predatory insurance policies for the economically disadvantage in our community.

[Red Knight]

10. Yes

If anyone had read the article they'd know it was about the bomber through the eyes of his friends.

How did they see him?

How did neighbors see him?

Coaches?

They saw a normal boy. That's the terrifying part----monsters don't always look like monsters.

It didn't glamorize him in anyway---that's a meme that the press put out there and everyone picked up. It's a right wing wet dream. Any attack against a liberal magazine is great for them.

We have very selective outrage in this country--but not for the things that really matter.